My Female Friend's Friends
The next morning.
Despite everything that had happened yesterday, the walk to school with Kim Hyewon proceeded exactly as normal.
We met at her door early, greeted her beloved cat Nabi on the way, and made it all the way to school and into the classroom without a single hitch in the process.
Honestly, it left me dumbfounded.
I'd stayed up all night agonizing over yesterday, and yet the very person responsible for that agony looked like absolutely nothing was on her mind.
'Seriously, what is this?'
Why was she so calm?
After being left alone yesterday, she'd read my texts and left me on read — and then this morning, out of nowhere, she'd sent me a message asking to walk to school together.
Even when I tried to bring up what yesterday meant along the way, she'd casually pretended not to hear.
And yet somehow, far from things turning awkward, Kim Hyewon was acting even friendlier than before?
"Let's stop by the school store before class."
"The store?"
"Yeah. I'll buy you a banana milk."
Even after returning from the store, where she'd treated me.
Even during class.
Even during the break after class ended.
Naturally, with Kim Hyewon sitting right beside me demanding my attention, I couldn't focus on school for the life of me.
The weight of her on my lap, the sweet scent that had swept over me, her red lips, the eyes that had looked only at me, the glimpse of cleavage whenever my gaze dipped just slightly.
At this point, it felt like the weird one was me for even dwelling on it.
And then—
Swoosh—
Tap tap—
"……?"
"…Baek Seojun, you dummy."
Mid-class, she'd sneak her hand out behind the teacher's back to tickle the back of mine, or fold a tiny note and flick it at me — she didn't hesitate to pull the strangest little pranks.
Thankfully we were in the very back corner by the window, or we'd have been caught instantly.
In any case, Kim Hyewon played around without a shred of hesitation, as if her sense of the appropriate distance between boys and girls had completely broken down.
"…What are you thinking about?"
"…Keep it down, you'll get us caught."
"You're thinking about me, aren't you. How lewd."
"…Why does it always end up like this."
See?
She's doing it right now.
Tormented like this all morning, I arrived at lunch having absorbed absolutely nothing from class.
The moment lunch began, Lee Chaeeun came sidling over, but Kim Hyewon grabbed my wrist and hauled me toward the cafeteria faster.
Thanks to that, I never heard a word of whatever Chaeeun had been about to say.
"Pay her no mind and just pick up your chopsticks. It's a given she was about to ask you to eat together."
"You think so?"
"Yep. Or she was going to tell you to eat on your own since she's eating with that Yang Jinhyeok guy or whatever. Ah — or maybe, not knowing how you feel, she was going to invite the whole group, you and Yang Jinhyeok included."
…Maybe.
The one who doesn't know how I feel is you, Kim Hyewon.
I barely managed to swallow down the words trying to escape.
"…? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"…Nothing. Let's just eat."
I decided to give up on figuring out the meaning of what she'd done yesterday.
Judging by how she'd acted ever since, she probably had no intention of telling me.
Or she'd genuinely done it without a single thought behind it.
'Which, if true, would make her absolutely insane.'
Hmm.
…I chose to believe Kim Hyewon wasn't that.
She wouldn't. Probably.
"…You're thinking something weird right now."
Kim Hyewon stopped mid-bite and narrowed her eyes at me.
Not weird thoughts exactly, but her instincts were frighteningly sharp.
"No I wasn't. What weird thoughts?"
"Yes you were. That was the face of someone thinking something weird just now."
"…How can you even tell that?"
"Intuition."
Great instincts, she has.
I let out a small sigh and slid the tangerine tart from my dessert portion onto her tray.
"Here, have this."
"…Can I really?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
A moment ago her eyes had been slitted with suspicion; now her face brightened as she dug into the tart with delight.
'She really does love her desserts, huh.'
Was that a high school girl thing, or just a girl thing?
Not every woman was like that, sure — but most girls did love their sweets.
I was quietly watching Kim Hyewon enjoy her tart when—
"Kim Hyewon!"
"Hyewon."
"…?"
"Ah."
Two pretty girls holding empty trays appeared behind us.
"…Oh. Sohyeon and Areum."
"Why have you ghosted us at lunch for two days straight? And this guy here is… Baek Seojun, isn't it?"
"……?"
They knew who I was.
I, on the other hand, had no idea who they were.
"Why are you eating lunch with him?"
In any case, they seemed to be Kim Hyewon's friends.
And not just any friends — the two she was supposedly always eating with.
The pair looked back and forth between me and Kim Hyewon, brimming with questions, and at the weight of those stares Kim Hyewon frowned slightly.
"…We're done eating. Let's take this outside."
***
We found somewhere private to sit and talk.
The first question came from the brown-haired girl.
Her name was… Han Sohyeon, was it?
"Hyewon. Are you dating Baek Seojun?"
But why did the first question come out like that?
"…No."
"Then why is our Hyewon — the girl who recoils at the mere sight of a man — eating lunch with him?"
Kim Hyewon paused for a beat before answering.
"…We're friends first of all."
"…? Hyewon, you are? With a guy?"
Apparently that answer was strange enough on its own.
The girl called Han Sohyeon tilted her head, clearly not buying it.
Before long, she turned her gaze on me.
"So what exactly is your relationship with our Hyewon?"
"Hmm. Like Hyewon said, we're friends."
"Huh? Really? There's no way our Hyewon would do that with a guy."
Just what on earth had Kim Hyewon done in the past to earn remarks like that?
I was genuinely curious… but now was hardly the time to ask.
More importantly—
"I've got a question for you too. Do you two happen to know me?"
That reaction they'd given me in the cafeteria was nagging at me.
Especially from this girl, Han Sohyeon, who was talking to me right now.
"Of course we do."
"…Why?"
When the answer came back as a matter of course, I was thrown off.
"…How could you not know? You're insanely famous at our school?"
"…Me?"
"Yep."
Famous? Me?
…Why on earth?
The answer that followed was a shock.
"You're the one with Kim Chaeeun, right? You two are super famous as the ultimate childhood-friend couple — the very symbol of pure love. Especially among the girls, you're known as the unofficial number one boyfriend candidate?"
"……"
…That's an embarrassing thing to have to listen to.
And worse, not a single word of that famous reputation was actually true.
"Huh? That's not right?"
"…No, it's not."
"You're not dating Kim Chaeeun?"
"…Nope."
Not pure love, not a childhood-friend couple.
I'd hoped for that once, until recently — but not anymore.
"Aha! So you broke up! And now you've set your sights on our Hyewon as the next target!"
But Han Sohyeon, unaware of any of this, threw her arms around Kim Hyewon and cried out.
"I'm never handing our Hyewon over!"
"…It's not like that."
I answered, pressing a hand to my forehead.
Kim Hyewon pulled herself out of Han Sohyeon's grip with a scowl. And then, by some twist of fate, the place she retreated to happened to be right beside me.
"So what is really going on between you two? You didn't just dump that girl and sweet-talk our Hyewon into switching over, did you? Or maybe you put her under hypnosis or something?"
…Where do I even begin untangling this mess.
Head aching, I shot Kim Hyewon a look that said you answer this one.
But.
"……"
She quietly looked away.
No — actually, she leaned her body further into me.
Swoosh—
"Wait, hold on. You're really not dating? Because our Hyewon would never…? She's literally leaning on you right now!"
"So what."
"Hyewon, why are you leaning into a guy?! I've never seen you do that once, not once in my life! And you didn't say a word to us yesterday either, just went and ate with him?"
"She's right."
"Something about you two is seriously off."
Han Sohyeon was so stunned by it all that I genuinely started wondering what Kim Hyewon's baseline behavior even was.
As a result, I spent the next while doing damage control, insisting over and over that she and I weren't dating — that we were just friends.
And yet.
"So let me get this straight — you just somehow drifted into being friends, that's all? But you can't explain how you drifted into it?"
"…That's right."
"Yep."
The more I explained, the weirder it all sounded, somehow.
"And our Hyewon isn't just talking to you — she's actively asking you to eat lunch together first?"
"…True."
"Yep."
By anyone's standards, a thin and deeply suspicious explanation.
"And you two have even exchanged numbers, and you've texted each other multiple times already?"
"……"
"Yep."
A vague account that could only invite imagination.
Han Sohyeon narrowed her eyes.
"…You're really sure you're not dating?"
…Fair point.
Hearing it laid out like that, even I thought it sounded suspicious.
I wanted to insist that nothing like what she was imagining was going on — that Kim Hyewon and I were simply friends — but I gave up on explaining altogether.
First, any further explanation would require revealing how we'd gotten close in the first place, and that reason was not something I could casually share.
Second, for some reason, Kim Hyewon showed no inclination whatsoever to correct Han Sohyeon's misunderstanding.
In the end, the situation was only settled when the other girl — the one who had been listening quietly the whole time, Han Areum — stepped forward.
"Sohyon. That's enough."
At Han Areum's single remark, Han Sohyeon shut her mouth.
Han Areum offered a gentle smile and spoke in a soft, soothing voice.
"If Hyewon's friend, then he's our friend too — so we should all get to know each other well from now on. Right?"